ABSTRACT
Health care delivery is traditionally based on three basic ideas: i) it is better to provide more care than less;ii) once a patient is granted a medical resource, it cannot be taken from him/her unless it becomes unnecessary;iii) medical resources are distributed in accordance with priority on arrival. Sometimes, these principles lack proper legal/ethical ground, but in practice there are frequently followed criteria in many hospitals. Under normal circumstances, and assuming that there are enough healthcare resources available for everyone, this modus operandi works with few issues in light of ethics and public health consideations. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an entirely new scenario, with new methods required for patient triage and new strategies needed to avoid medical futility. This paper will sustain that the main criterion to allocate resources and triage patient of scarce health resources – such as in this pandemic – is the efficiency of the treatment. Furthermore, it underlines that fighting against medical futility becomes essential in these times. © 2021
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this article is to analyse non-pharmaceutical approaches to control pandemics. Currently vaccines are our best hope to control the COVID-19 pandemic, but before the appearance of the first vaccines the available possibilities were much more limited. While most people worldwide were confined to their homes to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, some countries (most notably the United Kingdom) advocated infecting the majority of the community, aiming to achieve what has been called "herd immunity". This article focuses on two non-therapeutic strategies for dealing with deadly viruses and points out their respective problems: natural herd immunity and quarantines/lockdowns. It analyses these strategies from three perspectives: legal, ethical and social. The article concludes that in the absence of therapeutic alternatives (vaccines), short-term lockdowns are necessary, but long-term lockdowns are legally, ethically, socially and financially impossible to sustain.
ABSTRACT
This article aims to provide a reflection on the World Health Organization sponsored Project: "Responsibility for Public Health in the Lusophone World: Doing Justice In and Beyond the Covid Emergency". This initiative was designed to gather experiences and data regarding the preparedness and response to the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic in Angola, Brazil, Mozambique, Portugal and the Macao Special Administrative Region. Launched in November 2020, it combines the in-depth analysis of the most recent legislation and bibliography on the matter with data obtained through a Questionnaire, addressed to a significant number of participants (from healthcare workers to academics and non-government organisations (NGOs), of which there were 41 respondents), which aims to gather different experiences and analyse ethical difficulties, identified in the response to the Pandemic.
ABSTRACT
Contact tracing has been commonly used to break the chain of infection during a pandemic and in the absence of pharmaceutical measures it becomes the most effective measure to reach that goal. Still, digital contract tracing as a tool to handle the COVID-19 pandemic was received in many jurisdictions with criticism involving its lack of effectiveness, privacy breaches, and the violation of other fundamental rights and liberties. This paper will address those objections and demonstrate that most of them are ungrounded or highly exacerbated. The paper will also highlight the benefits of digital contact tracing. © 2021, William S. Hein & Co., Inc.. All rights reserved.